Do You Only Wanna Dance?
by LadieLazarus
Summary: Syal Antilles becomes closer than ever to her best friend.


Syal Antilles was drunk. This wasn't a luxury that she allowed herself very often these days, but she was at a party damn it, and she was going to drink. She wasn't as far gone as Jaina Solo, who seemed to be using the experience to totally forget, through a truly intimidating amount of Booster's best Corellian brandy, about her slowly collapsing family unit, and also, to grind up against Syal's somewhat overwhelmed, and slightly more sober, cousin, Jagged Fel, with the same enthusiasm that Jaina usually reserved for flying simulators or lightsabre duelling.

The party had been thrown together at the last minute just earlier that day when Ben Skywalker, wise beyond his years as he typically seemed to be, had earlier declared that too much time had been spent in sadness over his fallen mother and that she would slap them all silly if she heard it. Instead, he proposed a revel in her honour and, as pilots are want to do, people backed his desire for a party with fierce enthusiasm. They commandeered a small cantina room on a less used wing of the Errant Venture, and proceeded to party.

Syal slouched against the far wall and observed the celebration through slurred vision, scanning the crowds for someone of her own to dance with. She wasn't running with anyone seriously these days, after all, and there were plenty of people gathered at this impromptu gathering. Her eyes stopped wandering when they landed on a particularly familiar visage, and she slowly, as not to stumble, made her way the three meters along the wall to where her intended target lounged, drink in hand, but not drunk. …Valin Horn was never drunk.

Valin turned as she approached and took in her definitely off-duty attire with amused green eyes. "You're out of uniform, Lysa." He smirked, and raised his glass in her direction as he took a carefully controlled sip. She took the glass from his hands and pulled from it herself, making only the slightest face at the sensation of straight, undiluted whiskey. Valin, making no move to retrieve his glass, leaned against the wall again with his arms crossed across his broad chest. Sometimes, Syal wondered how that boy fit in a cockpit.

"Damn straight. I don't intend to put on another uniform unless it's from a government that has seen the destruction of that monster." Saying Jacen's name wasn't necessary. Someone would overhear, and this really wasn't the place to begin a political discussion. Valin simply reacted with a casual nod.

"Either way, it suits you." She smiled and bowed slightly in sarcastic acceptance of her best friend of almost her entire life's compliment.

"You wanna dance?" She handed him back his drink, almost empty, and he drained it and set it on the table slightly behind him. He shrugged, both hands free now and offered her his right.

"Don't see why not. Unless there's some angry flyboy somewhere who will be beating me to death for it." Syal shook her head in response, and allowed him to gently lead her to the dance floor.

The song playing had a slow, steady and sultry beat. Syal began, not totally trusting her motor skills, with a slow suggestive movement of her hips before actually choosing to respond with words.

"Nah. I'm not running with any particular flyboy these days. Too much trouble." She shrugged and watched as Valin slowly became involved in the dancing himself.

Always a musician, Valin connected with music on levels that never ceased to entrance Syal. He could pick up on sub-beats and counter-rhythms and turn them into movement that she often joked was similar to Twi'lek dancers, only more masculine. Yep, she noted as he brought one hand up to place it on her right hip, definitely more masculine.

He pulled her closer, but not any closer than they'd danced before, the many times they'd kept each other entertained at such functions. However, this was different somehow, and Syal noticed it almost immediately. There was… heat? Was that the word, she wondered, between them? She blamed the alcohol, and elected to turn in his grasp in an attempt to get herself out from under those piercing eyes that his father had handed down.

This proved to be a fatal tactical error. As she turned, his arm slid around her waist from behind and pulled her directly into contact with him, to move along with him in his lazy, sensual way. She automatically placed her arm over his and immediately regretted it, as it seemed to actually cause electric currents to run straight through the offending limb and into her torso. She turned her head slightly to catch his eye, and noticed that his eyes were dilated. She wondered if hers were, too.

She turned back around quickly, again finding his intense gaze too unnerving. As she turned, her backside grazed him below the waist, and she started in total surprise to hear her ever-composed best friend let out a frustrated hiss. She couldn't help but feel a little self-satisfaction mixed, and nearly overwhelmed by, fear. It may have just been Valin, but on the other hand, she was slowly fraying the self-control of the serene, controlled Valin Horn. The Jedi who was certainly headed for a position of great importance in the Jedi Order if he continued at the impressive rate he was supposedly progressing, and she, little Syal Antilles, the underestimated, often ignored daughter of one of the most well-known pilots of all time, was making him make that noise, which he was still making. And worse, she was enjoying it. Oh, Force, she was enjoying it. This could get dangerous quickly.

This thought was quickly reinforced as he slid his hand from her stomach down to her hip and brought his right hand up to match the left on her other side. He was holding her to him like she was his life, his only necessity, and oddly enough, she found the sensation even more intoxicating than alcohol. She leaned back into his arms and felt herself entirely pressed against him from her head, resting just below his collarbone, to where her backside rested against his hips. They moved together, and Syal found that she honestly couldn't remember how this had started, but she knew that, when the song ended abruptly just a few minutes later, she wanted to kill the person manning the music player.

Valin seemed to have similar thoughts as he didn't so much relinquish his hold on her as drop his arms, his hands grazed the outsides of her thighs and she shivered, despite the natural heat in the cantina. She turned, again, to look him in the eyes. He gazed directly into hers for a second, seemingly searching for something, and she was just about to open her mouth to jokingly quip about him doing some kind of Jedi voodoo, when suddenly she found herself pinned to the wall behind them. Valin's hands were on either side of her head as he leaned in to whisper in her ear, and she felt herself leaning closer to the feeling of his breath on her neck.

"If you want me to walk away, then you've got to tell me right now, Syal. Because I don't think that it's going to be an option in a moment."

"What are we doing, Valin?" Syal managed to choke out between lips that suddenly felt dryer than the Dune Sea. She poked her tongue out to moisten them and Valin groaned, dropping his face to avoid looking at her and to seemingly regain control. He raised it again, in a few moments, and she jolted at the deep, dark emerald that replaced the ordinary sage green that she was used to seeing looking out at her. He paused another moment, and she wondered again if her eyes were similarly altered, before he spoke again, in a tone that made her glad the wall was behind her to support her.

"I should think you'd know that by now, Syal." He grinned before suddenly becoming very serious, "Look, the truth is this: we've both figured out by now, that if we take this through to its apparent conclusion, it'd pretty much be hot as hell. However, the truth is also that if we do… _this," _she found herself shivering at the concept, "that it will change us forever. We'll never be the same friends that we were. I'm okay with that. Honestly, I think I've been in love with you for ages, and I just now opened my kriffing eyes and realized how lucky I've been to even dance with you. The question is, are you brave enough to meet me halfway, Antilles?" Syal had already known what her answer was going to be, but his spontaneous profession made her all the more positive that this would be a very good thing to do.

"Bring it on, Jedi." She barely had time to quirk an eyebrow before her eyes were forced closed by the indescribably brilliant pressure of his lips on hers.

Syal rarely allowed herself to stop thinking, in fact, that happened even less than her getting drunk, but she honestly thought that she could feel her brain stopped working and all that she could think about was the way that his mouth tasted like whiskey, and that she wanted to see what he looked like underneath that tunic, and that even though she wished that he would pull back so that she could suggest a change of venue, she never wanted to stop threading her fingers through that hair. Force, how could she never have realized how glorious his hair was.

Valin was in heaven and hell at the same time. She was responding to him in fantastic ways, pressing up against him and using her hands to unnecessarily hold him to the kiss. Suddenly, one of her legs wound its way around him and he instantly remembered that if this was going to go any further, he may want to remove them both from this cantina, where her father was sure to spot them and cause Valin's instant and very painful death. Valin did not fear too many things in the galaxy, but right now, with "little Syal Antilles" wrapped around him like a vine around a tree, he understood all to gravely that Wedge Antilles should be quickly added to that short list. This thought was enough to force him to pry himself from the oh-so-willing grasp of the woman in front of him.

"Syal." She opened her eyes, and Valin shook himself to temporarily ignore those lidded orbs, their sense of arousal all too evident. "Perhaps we should… move this somewhere else. Somewhere with less witnesses?" He suddenly hoped that he wasn't being too presumptuous, and his father's voice, instructing him long ago in how to treat women with respect, echoed in his head. He hoped against hope that she wouldn't be offended, and breathed a sigh of relief when her knowing eyes, scanning the room, fell upon her father with a smirk.

"Less Wedge, you mean?" He chuckled and she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned up to whisper in his ear. "Sounds good to me. Why don't you make your excuses and leave. Go to my room, I'll give you the access key. Jaina's my roommate and I get the impression that she's… probably not coming home tonight. I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes." She kissed him and spun him around, tucking her key card into his back pocket, and pushing him towards the crowd to say his goodbyes and she strolled over to Jaina, more than likely to inform her roommate not to return. He took the key card from his pocket, and decided that yes, Wedge Antilles was more than likely going to kill him but, as the old pilot's adage went, what a way to go.


End file.
